Breaking Dev: The Cross-Channel Experience

In his The Cross-Channel Experience presentation at Breaking Development in Nashville TN, Nick Finck outlined the importance of considering all customer touchpoints in your design. Here’s my notes from his talk:

Cross channel experience design is the process of designing for all the touchpoints a person has with a business regardless of channel (web site, print, mobile, etc.). 90% of businesses say the cross-channel experience is critical to their businesses’ success.

70% of US online customers research products on the Web and purchase them offline. So cross-channel experiences matter.

Static touchpoints: physical products and their packaging.

Interactive touchpoints: are constantly updated like websites, Twitter, etc. These are always evolving.

You may think of your work in the context of one channel but your customers do not. They associate all their touchpoints with a single brand.

Quantitative information can provide analytics about what people are doing with your products but it doesn’t tell you why. There are qualitative measures that can help you understand why.

Observe how people use your site and services and learn about the context of use: where and how they interact with your service. Pay attention to the details.

Look for hacks: see how people have adjusted products to understand where there could be experience gaps.

Follow the whole engagement: don’t just focus on a single channel. Watch the entire process.

Learn the business process: many things behind the scenes influence the customer experience. The more you know the better you can see where there are limitations or opportunities.

Customer Journey Map is a way to illustrate the cross channel experience of a customer. It includes what happens front-stage (visible to customer) and back-stage (behind the scenes) in a linear flow.

Service blueprint helps to guide back-end processes: how things fit together and what needs to be in place to create a great user experience.

Netflix is an example of managing the front and back stage experience of a customer’s cross channel experience. A typical experience covers: web, email, packaging, product, streaming media, and mobile.

Businesses need some proof that spending time on a cross-channel experience matters. But we can’t solve problems using the same kind of thinking that created them.

We need to cross-pollinate. To work together and make something cohesive. This requires a unified vision for the entire team to align around.